As infrequently as budget phones are updated, owners of low-cost phones should be glad their phone is continuing to receive support. However, a software update released on November 28th for the BLU Life One X2 has users less than thrilled. On first boot, the phone displays a new password screen—unfortunately, nobody has the password. Without a way to unlock the phone, users are resorting to factory resetting the phones with mixed results.

Multiple user reports on Reddit, iFixit, and Amazon have indicated that the affected phones crash on a screen in which you can enter your email address to receive updates from BLU. However, not all users appear to be affected by this bug—others have reported success after removing the microSD card. Additionally, given BLU's massive product portfolio (the company has released upward of 40 phones this year) and unintuitive naming scheme, it is somewhat unclear what models are affected. One Amazon user wrote a review indicating that the BLU Advance A7 was affected, while another user has posted about the Advance A5 at iFixit.

For now, not updating your firmware is advisable. This incident was foretold in 1999 by electronic oracles Eiffel 65, with their song "Blue (If I update, I die)."

This incident follows a tumultuous history for BLU Products. In November 2016, some Blu devices were identified by the security research firm Kryptowire as carrying spyware which transmitted user information to a Chinese company. As a result, sales of the BLU R1 HD were suspended for one month at Amazon. Amazon again pulled some Blu devices in July 2017 when the co-founder of Kryptowire claimed at Black Hat 2017 that the apps were still present on the phones, but that "They replaced [the malware] with nicer versions." Amazon restarted sales of the affected phones after a week. BLU has consistently denied responsibility for these vulnerabilities.

Android Police has reached out to BLU Products for a statement on this update situation. We'll let you know if we hear back from them.

Comments

Danny Iota

I didn't know people, other than drug dealers who need burners, bought these phones.

Antics

Other than drug dealers, it's mostly just us suckers who got tired of paying $$ for premium devices, only to be enticed by the low prices, use BLU phones for a few ̶m̶o̶n̶t̶h̶s̶ weeks and realize it's worth it to pay a smidgen more for something with a bit more... less awfulness.

Orlando Duran

Said no one ever,. They are garbage

Joe

Funny, I have had my current phone six month without issue, and my previous for 24 month. Do the math. $5.30 a month for a phone.

John Johnson

I'm genuinely amazed there even was an update.

saf1927

I work with BLU. This update is intentional. We are launching a new phone soon. Time to upgrade, folks.

someone755

100% legit source of information.

Orlando Duran

Garbage phones

Lorinczi Thomas

The intent is to provide users with a sense of pride and accomplishment for hardworking af to get the money for the new phone and try to remember everything they had on the old pohne

Shantel

Your company didn't up date my phone it crashed my phone instead.so what do i do about that?

blueren

So it begins...

Rocket

This has to be the most memeable picture ever

HoppyRabbit

Can any of you recommend another cell phone that it not over the top expensive?? I have one of the affected phones and I need my phone for work.

Or if you don't care about updates, pretty much anything with a MSM8974 (Snapdragon 800/801) still works great today.

Antics

If you're on this site (AP), then is possible that you're open to the world of custom ROMs. As someone755 said, the SD 800/801 still performs well to this date. My Nexus 5 (SD 800) runs Android 7.1.2 (Lineage OS CAF), has the November 6, 2017 security patch, and gets great standby battery life (TrueSight kernel).

The Nexus 5 XDA community is still rolling strong, so it's definitely a recommendation if you're cool with branching from Google's factory images. Heck this phone still has lots of pros these days: wireless charging, great repair-ability (parts are easy to get to a plentiful online), and since it uses the camera2 API, devs have made it to where I can take 32MP photos and even shoot 4K video.

HoppyRabbit

Wonderful. I'm definitely going to look into the Nexus. Thank You for the input.

Max Johnson

Moto E4.

Liquid5n0w

Just factory reset it, then continue using it. When buying a new phone in the future, then think about what you want.

HoppyRabbit

I really don't want to do that. I need some things on my phone and am hoping to salvage them. I think I am going the route of buying a new phone and waiting to see if they will actually fix the issue (ha ha ha I won't hold my breath).

Joe

They won't.

Orlando Duran

One plus is

Liquid5n0w

My grandfather called me last night with this problem, now I have to walk him through the process of a factory reset over the phone as he lives hours away...

MadMartigan

...might still be quicker to drive. ;-)

Liquid5n0w

He's actually doing quite well, it's factory resetting now

MadMartigan

Lucky. Had it been my grandfather's...Well, I shudder to imagine. :)

Glad it's working out.

Φώτης

Yo listen up, here's the story..

someone755

About a little guy that lived with a BLU phone

Makay Chapulets

And got locked out after updating the software of his BLU phone

Dudefoxlive

And had to Factory reset his phone

Eumelanin Knight

Just take your phone to your local Chinese Embassy. You'll be able to get it unlocked IMMEDIATELY. Easy peasy.

webdev452

Well if you can't unlock the phone, you are truly secure from chinese spyware...

Jonathan Rampersad

Blu just like alacatel and other cheap Chinese branded phones are shit , as they say good thing not cheap ,cheap thing not good

"lucky to get support " I was one of those unfortunate people who believed in Blu's lies. I bought the "R1 plus" with their published promise that the "update to Nougat was just around the corner"

Yes, I had two of their phones: the R1 HD: which is was a decent budget phone and the R1 HD plus: which was an absolutely a piece of garbage!

Fortunately, I replaced them both with Le ECO Pro 3, and Le ECO SE2, and then installed a custom Rom on each

Now I own absolute beast with a snapdragon 821 processor, and all of the usual flagship options.

Best of all I paid under $200. So if anyone wants to ditch their Blu device, get one of these Le ECOs or get a Honor 7 on Amazon. You can still pay the budget price and receive a phone that's worth keeping for several years.